A Drink (Alpha Centauri)
by azimpenn
Summary: Drunk minds speak sober hearts.


The rain tapped on the lead glass window in gentle bursts. If Crowley closed his eyes, it almost sounded like waves crashing against the rocky shore. Of course he adored all manner of bad weather – hurricanes and tornados were as pleasing to him as a summer thunderstorm, and he wasn't overtly fond of sunshine – but nothing matched this gentle London gloom. It was best to enjoy it from where he sat, tucked deeply in an oversized antique velvet sofa, his lanky limbs folded and a glass of wine in hand, the smell of ancient books enveloping him.

The glow of several lamps warmed the feeling of the room. They lit up Aziraphale's face, flushed from wine, framed by rare anthologies and collections of dusty encyclopedias as he sat slumped in his creaky desk chair. The rare book shop was his nest. It was a comfortable nest he'd built over centuries, so that Crowley always knew exactly where to find him, as their lives flowed into one another's and ebbed out again. Lately, more flowing. Much more.

They were both drunk. Drunkenness was always a choice for them – like eating and sleeping, it was something done not by accident but purely for enjoyment. And oh, the enjoyment Crowley was getting out of tempting Aziraphale into what he always saw as embarrassingly sinful, in the morning.

"Can't expect any better wine in heaven, eh?" Crowley slurred, doing his best to wink one reptilian eye at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale puffed his cheeks up and blew out exasperatedly. Exasperated was always how he acted with Crowley. Even after 6000 years, Crowley still got a tickle each time he got under Aziraphale's skin.

"No, I don't suppose so," Aziraphale sighed, taking another deep drink from his gilded wine glass. "But God knows what's best. We must still…do our best…not to doubt it." His speech was slow, with blurry edges.

"Or what?"

"Well, you'd know." 

"Ehh." Crowley dangled his glass from fingertips and reached for the bottle to refill it. "It's not so bad, really. I think you know a little yourself." Aziraphale still leaned strongly away from admitting the doubt and questioning that had led him to work with Crowley in recent millennia – and in the past twelve years. He'd be better off just admitting that he had more in common with Crowley than with his superiors, but Crowley suspected it would be years before he'd convince Aziraphale of that fact.

Crowley could've been more careful, but a drop or two of wine slopped out of the bottle and onto a worn-looking pile of books next to his sofa. Whoops. Aziraphale didn't notice. He was standing, unsteadily, and Crowley's golden eyes followed him as he made his way to one of the towering bookshelves across the back room where they had been all evening.

He carefully, or as carefully as he could, pulled out a thick green tome and gave Crowley his best mysterious expression. "Have you looked at it?" He said, his voice an octave lower, more serious.

"What now?" a sip.

"Agnes Nutter. The profs…perfs…predictions."

Crowley pulled himself just a bit more upright. "I have to admit I was, ah, a bit too distracted to do it when I had the chance."

True – the burning bookshop, the realization of Aziraphale's discorporation, the sudden and violent void that opened within him when he realized what he'd lost – the book, the only thing he'd scooped up as he dashed out the door, was the last thing on his mind. Aziraphale had never really known the depth of Crowley's anguish.

How could he? How could he even know true anguish at all? Things had changed since Crowley had been in heaven. Back then, he was cast out simply for asking questions. Now, Aziraphale could literally quash Armageddon (with his help, of course) and stay an angel, at least pardoned if not still in God's graces. Loss was not something Aziraphale could ever truly understand, the sweet thing. Not like Crowley did.

Aziraphale was doing his level best to carry the book back over to where Crowley sat, but he was a little too unsteady. "Let's have a look at what's next," he drawled to Crowley, "But I need to sober up first."

"You're no fun," Crowley moaned. Never mind; there would be other chances to imbibe. They both squeezed shut their eyes in concentration and willed the alcohol from their bloodstreams. Perks, Crowley thought, blinking and shaking his head as his mind cleared.

All of the floppiness and carelessness now gone from Aziraphale's stature, he sat down on the sofa next to Crowley, straight-backed and proper as always. He'd pinched up some rubber medical gloves from his desk and slid them on. Ever the bibliophile. Ever careful. Crowley lightly smirked to himself, watching Aziraphale's deft and slender hands as they flicked the pages of Agnes Nutter's life's work.

Drunk or sober, the old sofa was a cloud of upholstery and stuffing that swallowed up anyone who sat on it, and he wondered how Aziraphale was sitting so cleanly as he struggled to scoot forward and lean in. As he did, his chest bumped Aziraphale's arm, and Aziraphale turned his head ever so slightly to the right. Their faces close, he could smell Aziraphale's cologne. Neither of them pulled away.

"What have we got then?" Crowley said softly, his eyes scanning the pages.

Aziraphale looked away again, back at the book, his lips pressed tightly. "Well," he said. "You can see right here all of the events which led up to the – uh – well, almost-Armageddon." He pointed at a paragraph that touched on the bookshop fire, then slid a gloved finger down to another small paragraph about the Bentley's explosion and their breach of the gates at the Tadfield air base. "Some of the prophecies can't be verified by you or me, since we weren't in this many places at one time, but given her track record I would say they can be trusted." 

Crowley was scanning the page, but more than the prophecies and their trustworthiness, he was noting the warmth of Aziraphale's arm, which was still nestled against him as they read. Of course the angel was warm. He subtly glowed, most of the time. Crowley couldn't recall a time they'd ever touched for more than a second or two, or really been in closer proximity than seated in his car or on the park bench. He allowed his eyes to flick up for just a moment, to check Aziraphale's expression.

Aziraphale was slowly turning pages, his lips just barely apart, eyes sparkling. He'd read every word in this book and ached for more, but he wanted to share it with someone, and the only one that could ever understand anything, truly, was Crowley. Who, he thought, had been quiet for longer than normal.

He turned his head again to see Crowley's eyes on his. They were golden, lamp lit, totally unreadable...and very close to his own. He was stunned at their warm glow, which Crowley almost always kept hidden behind sunglasses, unless he was here. Those eyes must have been designed to disarm. They did so to Aziraphale often.

He realized that he'd relaxed his own posture and was almost leaning into Crowley as they read. He felt his face flush, not from wine this time, and cleared his throat. Crowley, ever the antagonist, no doubt sensed his embarrassment. So he chose this moment to reach his right arm around Aziraphale, his left making its way behind, and gently flicked a page.

"Do you, ah, well, you surely see now the reason for this book being so highly sought after," Aziraphale bumbled. "If you recall Berlin – the church – the Nazis – they'd specifically requested this book and they were most displeased when I could not produce it." He turned, just a bit, toward Crowley. "Are you _at all_ interested?"

Crowley kept his serpentine eyes on the book and pursed his lips. "You could say I am, yes." As he withdrew his right hand, he allowed it to linger for a moment, fingertips traveling the sleeve of Aziraphale's coat. Oh, demons. No, no matter how many millennia you'd known one, he could never, ever be trusted. Aziraphale started to tell himself how much Crowley would enjoy reporting the corruption of a Principality – before remembering that there would likely be no more reports, for either of them. They were on their own side, he heard the demon's voice say.

Aziraphale hadn't even realized the darkness that must have passed onto his face, for Crowley leaned back into his corner of the sofa with a devilish grin (weren't all of his grins devilish?). "Lighten up, angel," he chided.

Aziraphale's pulse was thundering in his ears. Like eating, sleeping, and drunkenness, Crowley's behavior was not one ever indulged in by their ilk. Well, not his anyway. He knew that nearer to Noah's time, Crowley had discovered his proclivity for seduction and used it wantonly to gather souls for Satan. He'd stopped reporting it once he realized that he was becoming known for it in the lower circles. It was a tool, not a compulsion. And Aziraphale was not going to allow this tool to be used upon him. But still…he couldn't be angry at the demon. What good would that do?

Crowley was still watching him, studying him, tapping his fingers on his empty wine glass. That gentle smirk was still on his face. Now he lurched upward. "More drink," he announced as he reached again for the now-refilled wine bottle. "I thought I could handle you sober, but you're testing me. Typical angel."

Aziraphale glanced up from his book almost sheepishly. "Likewise," he grumbled. He turned his head away as Crowley thrust his refilled wine glass under his nose. "No." He was peeling off his gloves, folding them precisely.

"Yeeess," Crowley pushed in a teasing growl. Aziraphale scoffed and accepted the glass.

"Oh all right. I'm not sure why I let you continue to be such a terrible influence."

"I'm the only fun you have is why," Crowley said, ever the braggart, as he flopped back down next to Aziraphale. "You'd be lost without me."

Crowley kicked his feet up and over the arm of the couch, leaning his back right into Aziraphale, astonishing the angel. "Quite," he mumbled, not sure what to do with his hands. Or with anything else. Crowley, meanwhile, was making himself quite comfortable, nudging the angles of his shoulders and head right into Aziraphale's lap, both of them noticing for the first time the stark difference of one's sharpness against the other's softness. The 350-year old one-of-a-kind book lay on the sofa beside them, now nestled between the cushion and the arm.

"So what now? The world didn't end and I almost feel like I'm unprepared. What do humans do when they lose a job?"

Aziraphale replied, voice somewhere between a whisper and a croak, "I imagine they find another." He took a pull from his wine glass. Your hands are shaking, angel, he thought. You don't need wine to control yourself. And he willed his hands to be still, and they were.

"Not all of them do," argued Crowley. Surely, the demon would know more about the lazy and the unmotivated; they were his charges. "Some of them take holidays." Crowley wiggled, searching for the most comfortable place on Aziraphale's lap to rest his head. His eyes sparkled as he looked up.

Somehow, suddenly, Aziraphale felt that this conversation was both very secondary as well as very important. He felt the keen sensation that Crowley knew he would allow this, as if the demon somehow owned a part of him. Half of him wanted to prove otherwise, to leap up and leave the back room of the shop, to go become lost in myriad bookshelves in the front, in the dark. Yet – half of him wanted to – well, to wait – to see what happened. To let him in. Is this what the humans felt when Crowley took their souls? Best not to think about it.

For a few moments, the only sound was each of them sipping their glasses of Aziraphale's vintage wine, as they both adjusted to one another's new proximity. For Crowley, acting as if he was in complete control was his second nature. He couldn't have felt further from it – his skin buzzing and pulse thumping as he worked to maintain composure. For centuries he had waited for this moment, although he hadn't known it until now. Oh, the pure rightness of it. Purity wasn't something he regularly got close to.

Crowley often felt that Aziraphale would be happy being "his" angel, though he'd never ever put words to such a notion. Aziraphale was letting him in. Of course he was! The strangest thing to Crowley was how one could live from the beginning of time, with such power and such knowledge, and be – not arrogant – not as he was – but…reserved? Shy, even. Affable. A Southern pansy, he thought to himself with the softest of chuckles.

Aziraphale's eyes snapped to his. "What?" he asked defensively.

"Nothing. Listen." He pulled himself up with renewed inspiration, leaning right into Aziraphale. He faced the angel with his right arm planted on his other side, supporting his weight as he brought their faces close together. The angel's ice blue eyes darted down, then up, confused and maybe – was it – intimidated? It gave Crowley a small thrill. "There's still Alpha Centauri," he said softly, beseechingly. "Just for a little while."

"The bookshop," Aziraphale whispered.

"It'll be here. It's always been here."

"Oh, but –" The wine was definitely getting to Aziraphale's head – again. He knew it would, knew Crowley knew it would. After all, being drunk was no accident. Crowley's fingers very intentionally brushed his.

Then, surprising them both, Aziraphale closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the demon's.

Wordlessly, as if by reflex, Crowley brought his hand up to the nape of Aziraphale's neck, his fingers tangling in the golden floss of the angel's curls. Aziraphale's wine glass tumbled to the floor, a small red puddle spreading on the rug beneath them. He didn't stir to retrieve it. Instead, he allowed himself to feel Crowley's closeness, his warmth. Maybe it was the heat of hellfire, but he didn't care. Not at this moment.

The rain continued to gale against the old windows outside as Aziraphale felt himself softening. His own hands had tucked themselves inside Crowley's coat, around his back, as if by their own will.

"Alpha Centauri," repeated Aziraphale. They glowed together.

"Just for a bit."

The angel and the demon smiled into one another. The gaps between them closed.


End file.
